Academics examine Vitamin B10 – Birthright’s secret

Last week, more than 100 academics gathered at Brandeis University to analyze Taglit-Birthright Israel.

Birthright participants 311.
(photo credit:Ofer Shimoni)

Last week, more than 100 academics gathered at Brandeis University’s Cohen
Center for Modern Jewish Studies to analyze an unlikely research subject –
Taglit-Birthright Israel.

The formal research confirmed what simple
observation of this informal process reveals: This “Mega-Experiment in Jewish
Education,” as Professor Len Saxe who convened the conference calls Birthright,
has succeeded with more than 300,000 young Jews, thanks to the magic of Israel,
an Israel they see through their eyes, not through the distorting lens of
conflict-obsessed reporters or angry activists.

But Birthright’s success
also stems from its humanistic, person-centered educational philosophy. This
approach emphasizes “no strings attached” – meaning no ideological or practical
demands in return for what Charles Bronfman calls a gift from one generation to
the next. It respects all participants, inviting them to launch their own unique
Jewish journeys without the traditional guilt trips, while acknowledging the
centrality of Israel and of Jewish peoplehood in building modern Jewish
identity.

Birthright’s origins were not just countercultural but
counterintuitive. This is a program conceived in failure which easily could have
failed. It emerged from the panic generated in the 1990s when the National
Jewish Population Survey confirmed that intermarriage was becoming mainstreamed
in America. The American Jewish future looked grim.

Birthright was the
programmatic equivalent of a cardiac defibrillator, trying to give the ailing
Jewish community an emergency healing shock as things turned critical. But
thanks to its affirmative, open-ended approach, Birthright has gone from being
palliative to preventative. Vitamin B10 – 10 days of a collective Birthright
experience trip in Israel – is becoming a Jewish rite of passage, an elegant way
to start or restart a Jewish journey, not a desperate, defensive measure against
assimilation.

Now it looks easy, but it wasn’t. In the 1990s,
philosophers like Francis Fukuyama were declaring “the end of history,” as Miles
Trentell, the evil advertising executive on the late 1980s, early 1990s TV hit,
Thirty-something scoffed that, to modern Americans, history is last week’s People
magazine cover.

In 1995, the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam published
his article (which became a book), “Bowling Alone,” arguing that in a
post-collective age, selfish Americans bowled, but not together in leagues as
their parents did; this generation bowled alone.

In 1996, the historian
David Hollinger’s Postethnic America concluded that Americans were abandoning
their tribal connections.

Yet to ahistorical, hyperindividualistic,
postethnic Americans – and moderns, because Jews in dozens of countries
participate – Birthright offered a sense of the past through Israel’s layers of
history, a sense of the group through the peer experience on the bus, and a
sense of rootedness through the ethnic, tribal, national Jewish
connection.

And participants loved it.

Similarly, Birthright,
which the historian Jonathan Sarna notes reflected a new faith in
“transformative” educational experiences rather than more normative, less
ecstatic “formative” ones, revolutionized assumptions in the Jewish
world.

Birthright proved that Judaism could be dynamic and welcoming. Not
only has Birthright shown that bold ideas can be game-changers, but it
introduced a new, more fluid, more inspiring, less formalistic, less alienating
type of Judaism for young Jews to embrace, even without bar mitzvah goodies as
bribes.

Birthright proved that Israel could be inspiring and even
comforting, a far cry from the embattled, controversial country they see on TV,
because not everything is political. And Birthright proved that Zionism, despite
its many internal and external enemies, could be cool and
relevant.

Birthright reintroduces Judaism to participants as what Rabbi
Yitz Greenberg calls “an organizing filter,” a way of understanding the world
and themselves. This intense “takeoff” experience “reconnects” young Jews with
Jewish tradition, even while acting as what Jeffrey Solomon of the Andrea and
Charles Bronfman Philanthropies called a “disruptive technology,” meaning an
innovative, unconventional, cutting-edge program.

Birthright Israel’s
core educational principles, drafted by one of the greats of modern Jewish
education, Professor Barry Chazan, offer a quilted theory – meaning an
integrated platform – combining an experiential approach, a culture of values, a
culture of ideas, person-centered education, social interactionism and the
concept of fun – in a respectful, constructive context which measures
outcomes.

It has created a process which respects every participant’s
intelligence, independence and integrity – only asking them to participate
constructively, then draw their own conclusions.

The central challenge
facing modern American Jews is not anti-Semitism, nor is it defending Israel. It
is answering such basic questions as “who am I,” “what are my values,” “how do I
build a meaningful life” and “where does Judaism fit in”? As chairman of
Birthright Israel’s International Education Committee, I confess that the bigger
Birthright gets the harder we have to work to help participants answer those
questions effectively by staying small, intimate and person-centered.

We
never want to become the “educational McDonald’s” of the Jewish people, mass
producing one-size-fits-all fast food-type experiences. Instead, we seek to
cultivate a modern, open-air, experiential Beit Midrash (House of Study),
wherein each individual may follow the same itinerary, but, in a true I-thou
educational interaction, grows in a particular way that works for him or
her.

Jeffrey Solomon asked: will Taglit be like Apple or HP – continuing
to innovate or so addicted to past success we stagnate.

From the start,
Birthright has invested in research, guaranteeing constant and accurate
feedback, while yielding results – ably analyzed by Len Saxe and his Brandeis
team – proving that the experience encourages Jews to marry each other, raises
Israel awareness, deepens Jewish connectedness, and is lots of
fun.

Conferences like this one, assembling educators, rabbis, historians,
demographers, anthropologists, sociologists, even an economist, will keep
Birthright sharp, keep it innovating, even as its essential fuel remains the
delightfully combustible combination of Jewish tradition, an open-ended approach,
passionate educators, and a generation seeking meaning in life and a more
dynamic Judaism than the one their parents introduced to them.

Gil Troy
is professor of history at McGill University and a Shalom Hartman Engaging
Israel Research Fellow in Jerusalem. The author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel,
Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today, he is the chairman of the
Taglit-Birthright Israel International Education Committee.